Displaying items by tag: Roadmap

Spain: The Spanish cement association Oficemen has targeted a 43% emissions drop by 2030 across its entire value chain compared to 1990 levels. The objective has been published as part of the association’s sustainability roadmap to 2050. It is a tightening of the previous target of 27% by 2030. Oficemen intends to meet the tougher reduction by using the so-called 5C approach - clinker, cement, concrete, construction and built environment, and (re)carbonation – as detailed by Cembureau, the European Cement Association. Oficemen also revealed that it is working with the Spanish Technological Platform for CO₂ (PTECO₂) on identifying potential locations for storing captured CO₂. Hugo Morán, Secretary of State for the Environment, participated remotely with the launch event.

Oficemen also reports that Spanish cement consumption fell by 12% year-on-year to 12.2Mt in the first 11 months of 2020. Exports declined by 5%.

Germany: The German Cement Works Association (VDZ) has published a study entitled ‘Decarbonising cement and concrete: a CO₂ roadmap for the German cement industry,’ detailing the planned transformation to cement industry-wide carbon neutrality by 2050.

The study says that a decarbonisation scenario based on conventional reduction measures would cut carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions by 36% between 2019 and 2050. Chief executive officer (CEO) Martin Schneider said that the sector is already “reaching the limits of its potential for any further reduction in the volume of CO₂, particularly as the process-related emissions specifically associated with clinker production cannot be lowered by employing conventional means." As such, the association proposed a “completely new approach to the production of cement and its use in concrete” in order to realise full climate neutrality. It proposes that cement producers help to reduce concrete’s clinker factor, capturing the remaining CO₂ from necessary cement production.

Schneider said, "We have placed the decarbonisation of cement and concrete at the heart of our activities. It will be essential to achieve an integrated approach, incorporating the entire construction value chain.” In order for this more radical scenario to work, he added, “Another essential factor will be to involve society as a whole in this process."

US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) says it plans to develop a roadmap by the end of 2021 to help its member companies achieve carbon neutrality across the concrete value chain by 2050. It maintains that ‘concrete is critical to building a sustainable future’ and reinforced the benefits of concrete such as energy efficiency, lower life-cycle costs, durability and resilience. The roadmap is intended to solve problems facing the industry such as developing new technologies to reduce energy consumption and to develop and adopt related regulations.

“As the second most used material on earth and a cornerstone of our economy, we understand the critical role cement and concrete play in our nation’s future, and we are committed to an industry-wide effort that achieves carbon neutrality,” said Tom Beck, chairman of the PCA and president of Continental Cement. Rick Bohan, Vice President, Sustainability for the PCA added, “Developing a roadmap to carbon neutrality by 2050 further demonstrates our industry’s commitment to be a part of the solution and tackle this global issue.”

The PCA says that the industry has reduced energy consumption by 35%, emissions intensity by 11% and since 1990 has increased its use of alternative fuels.

UK: UK Concrete and the Mineral Products Association (MPA) have launched a roadmap for the concrete and cement industry to become net negative by 2050. It plans to do this through decarbonised electricity and transport networks, fuel switching, greater use of low-carbon cements and concretes as well as carbon capture, use or storage (CCUS) technology.

“We have already made significant progress to reduce carbon emissions but are under no illusion about the scale of the net zero challenge,” said Nigel Jackson, chief executive of the MPA. “Achieving this will require the wholesale decarbonisation of all aspects of concrete and cement production, supply and use. The concrete and cement industry as one sector alone cannot deliver net zero and we will only be able to go beyond net zero with concerted support from government, as well as with significant changes across the wider construction, energy and transportation sectors.” He added that the roadmap could be delivered without offsetting emissions, offshoring production facilities or ‘carbon leakage.’

The ‘Roadmap to beyond net zero’ calculates the potential of each technology and the carbon savings which can be achieved. CCUS technology is vital to delivering net zero manufacturing and according to the roadmap will deliver 61% of the required carbon savings. It intends to achieve a net negative industry by 2050 by the ability of concrete to absorb carbon dioxide during use and the thermal properties of concrete in buildings and structures to reduce operational emissions.

The MPA is also lobbying the government for a financial support model including for the capital and operational costs of carbon capture by no later than 2021. This is desired to ensure the technology can be developed, deployed and become an investable proposition in the 2030s.

Mexico: Cemex says that Carbon Trust has validated its roadmap to decarbonise global operations in line with the Sectoral Decarbonisation Approach (SDA) 2-degree scenario (2DS) developed by the International Energy Agency (IEA). The validated roadmap is intended to help the company to achieve a 35% reduction of net carbon emissions by 2030. The findings validate Cemex's roadmap for reducing Scope 1 and 2 emissions.

The Carbon Trust has assessed the technical feasibility of the plan based on guidelines defined by international institutions including the International Energy Agency, the Cement Sustainability Initiative, and the European Climate Research Alliance. The CO₂ reduction methods include the use of alternative fuels, using decarbonated raw materials, renewable power projects, and novel cements, among others. The validation also included a review of Cemex's commitment to implement the scheme based on governance mechanisms and business planning.

“The magnitude and complexity of change required by a company such as Cemex to decarbonise its global operations is significant. Our assessment provides the organization’s management, investors and stakeholders with an independent validation that its commitments are backed up by sound assumptions and planning,” said Aleyn Smith-Gillespie, Associate Director Advisory at the Carbon Trust.

Belgium: Cembureau, the European Cement Association, has published its new Carbon Neutrality Roadmap, setting out its ambition to reach net zero emissions along the cement and concrete value chain by 2050. The roadmap examines how CO₂ emissions can be reduced at each stage of the value chain – clinker, cement, concrete, construction and (re)carbonation – to achieve zero net emissions by 2050. It quantifies the role of each technology in providing CO₂ emissions savings, making concrete political and technical recommendations to support this objective.

“As Europe begins its green recovery, the significance of this moment for our sector is huge. This is our response to the EU Green Deal – we have a plan and are ready to make the leap.” said Raoul de Parisot, president of Cembureau. The association has identified areas where it says it requires decisive political action from the European Union (EU). These include: the development of a pan-European CO₂ transportation and storage network; action on circular economy to support the use of non-recyclable waste and biomass waste in cement production; policies to reduce European building’s CO₂ footprint, based on a life-cycle approach, that incentivise the market uptake of low-carbon cements; a ‘level’ playing field on carbon, regulatory certainty and an industrial transformation agenda.

Cembureau says it aspires to be in line with the Paris Agreement’s two degrees scenario, reducing CO₂ emissions by 30% for cement and 40% down the value chain. Its chief executive Koen Coppenholle added that, “Carbon neutrality along our full value-chain will be a massive effort, but we are confident we can achieve it. Our sector has made significant progress and, with the right tools and support from the EU, we can go much further.”

EU: The European Council and European Commission have published their joint coronavirus exit strategy, entitled ‘European Roadmap Towards Lifting COVID-19 Containment Measures.’ It advises EU member states on a course of action aimed at restoring community life and the economy, while also preserving public health, after the coronavirus outbreak.

The roadmap consists of a progressive lifting of travel restrictions, initially between border regions, then between regions less affected by the outbreak and subsequently across internal and external borders of the EU. The strategy applies a similar approach to restarting the economy, beginning with ‘essential sectors’ such as construction. The Commission will maintain a rapid alert system for supply chain disruptions, with the help of existing networks such as the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN), Clusters, Chambers of Commerce and trade associations.

Ireland: CRH recorded sales of Euro28.3bn in 2019, up by 6% year-on-year from Euro26.7bn in 2018. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 25% year-on-year to Euro4.20bn from Euro3.36bn. The company said that the results were supported by a positive demand backdrop in the Americas and in key regions in Europe. It also set out a new CO₂ emissions roadmap with target of 520kg/t of cement by 2030, a 33% reduction compared to 1990 levels.

India: Cement producers and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) have launched the Indian Cement Sector SDG Roadmap. The planning framework uses the United Nation’s (UN) sustainable development goals (SDG) to set a series of goals in energy and climate, people and communities, the circular economy and natural resource management. It is intended to contribute to the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

This initiative has been convened by nine cement companies: ACC, Ambuja Cement, CRH, Dalmia Cement (Bharat), Heidelberg Cement, Shree Cement, Orient Cement, UltraTech Cement, Votorantim Cimentos. It is also partially funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

Notable goals from the roadmap include promoting railway and waterway transport networks, improving transport safety, increasing the use of blended cements and encouraging the use of alternative fuels. The framework also plans to increase the number of women in the indsutry workforce at every level from entry to board.

India: UltraTech Cement aims to increase contribution of so-called ‘green energy’ to 25% of its total power consumption by 2021 from 10% at present. It also intends to raise its contribution of renewable energy to its total power consumption by five times in the next two years to 2021 to over 10%. By building capacity for renewable power the cement producer intends to become one of the largest users of renewable energy in the Indian cement sector.

In addition to renewable energy, the green energy contribution includes energy generated through waste heat recovery systems (WHR). During its 2019 financial year UltraTech commissioned 28MW of WHR systems to take its total generation from WHR to 8% of total power consumption. Further upgrades are expected to be completed in a phased manner by 2021, taking its WHR share to 15% of its total power requirement.

“To bring the cement sector in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change, UltraTech Cement’s annual emissions will need to fall by at least 16% by 2030. There are a number of solutions for reducing emissions associated with cement production as identified by the latest Low Carbon Technology Roadmap published by International Energy Agency (IEA) in partnership with Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI). These solutions need to be deployed at scale to meet the decarbonisation challenge,” said K K Maheshwari, the managing director of UltraTech Cement.

UltraTech Cement has set a target to reduce its CO₂ emissions by 25% from its 2005 – 2006 level by 2021. The company is also working on CO₂ reduction strategies including energy efficiency, alternative fuels, WHR, renewable energy and reducing its clinker ratio.